Review effort cut by up to 80% through automated collation
Average appeal turnaround time reduced from 75 days to 7
Benchmark of zero reviews in backlog
"Symphony3's AI Infringement Review Assistant has allowed us to transform the way we conduct our reviews. Review times for appeals have reduced considerably, by up to 80%. Our overall turnaround time was 75 days on average, nearing towards the 90-day cliff. It's now turned over in less than a week."
Mark Handby, Manager City Safety, Warrnambool City Council.
Background
Warrnambool is a coastal city of around 35,000 people on Victoria's south-west coast, known for its beaches, whale watching and maritime history. Each summer, visitors pour in – and so do parking infringements and the requests to review them.
When council moved infringement appeals online, review requests rose sharply. The process behind them was still manual: officers checked payment machines, offence records and legislation one system at a time, for every application. Volumes swing with the seasons, and every review has to be decided within the 90-day statutory window or the fine is waived.
The brief was clear from day one: make reviews faster and more consistent, and keep officers in charge of every decision.
The Challenge
Reviewing parking infringement applications required officers to gather ticket, location and vehicle data from multiple systems, cross-reference relevant legislation and council policy, and manually draft a response for every case. During peak periods, including the busy summer tourism season, increased application volumes placed additional pressure on the process, while reviews needed to be completed within the statutory 90-day timeframe to avoid infringements being waived. Council needed a more efficient and consistent way to support the review process, while ensuring every final decision remained with council officers. Any new solution also needed to reflect the standard of governance and transparency expected of council decision-making under state government oversight.
Every parking infringement review required the same slow tedious process. Online and handwritten requests for review needed to be collated and organised. An officer would then pull the ticket, location and vehicle details from separate systems, check payment history, cross-reference legislation and council policy, then draft a response letter from scratch.
In peak season the queue grew faster than officers could clear it, and the backlog of reviews was invariably sitting at 75 - 80 days, uncomfortably close to the 90-day limit. Hours went into collecting information rather than weighing it, and time spent at a desk was time not spent in the field.
Speed alone wasn't the answer. Warrnambool needed any process improvement to meet a high bar for governance, transparency and accountability. A faster process that officers couldn't explain or stand behind was not an option.
The Vision
An automated system that would gather the information and collate the evidence, with human experts to assess each review judiciously.
By 8:00am each day, as the Officer arrives at work, every open review with its evidence already assembled ready to be decided upon. Ticket details, payment history, infringement records and the relevant legislation all presented in a single reasoning document with a draft recommendation. Officers start the day making decisions, not hunting for information, and the hours saved go back into higher-value work in the community.
Zero backlog as the benchmark for success.
The Solution
In choosing a delivery partner, governance credentials and trust mattered to the council as much as technical capability. Symphony3 partnered with Warrnambool City Council working side by side with the council’s IT team and infringement review officers to develop an automated parking infringement review assistant.
- Daily evidence collation - Each morning, SmartGlue automatically gathers supporting evidence, payment history and infringement records from council’s systems.
- AI-assisted review preparation - Our AI assistant ingests each appeal, retrieves the relevant ticket and parking history, and checks the case against legislation and council policy, prepares a draft recommendation with clear reasoning. Officers get a consistent, evidence-based starting point for every review.
- Officers decide – always. Review officers remain the only people authorised to make a decision. They review, approve or change each recommendation, and every step is logged, creating a transparent record of what was considered and why.
- Decision letters drafted automatically. Once an officer decides, a draft response letter is generated automatically for them to read, edit and send, closing the loop end to end.
- Secure, AWS-hosted foundation - The solution is built on Amazon Web Services (AWS), with the AI assistant operating on Amazon Bedrock and Amazon Bedrock AgentCore. AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) support access control and secure data storage, helping the council meet its data governance and security requirements as it continues to explore generative AI.
Transformative Results
- Reduced review effort by 60 to 80% - By automatically collating case information and preparing a structured assessment, the solution reduces review effort by 60 to 80%, allowing officers to complete reviews more efficiently.
- Average appeal turnaround time reduced to 7 days - Parking infringement appeals that previously took around 75 days to resolve are now decided in as little as 7 days, comfortably within the statutory 90-day deadline. Serious cases are still escalated and handled with the level of attention required. Ultimately council is aiming for a backlog of zero.
- Reduced time spent on administrative tasks - With supporting evidence collated automatically, officers spend less time gathering information from multiple systems and more time reviewing applications and supporting the community through on-the-ground field activities.
- Transformed review process - High-volume, complex parking infringement reviews have been transformed into a consistent, transparent and defensible process, providing officers with a structured approach to every application.
- Human in the loop - The solution supports the review process, while council officers remain responsible for reviewing every application and making every final decision, ensuring accountability and governance throughout.
- Improved transparency - Every application is supported by a structured reasoning document, giving officers clear visibility of the information used throughout the review process.
"Our work with Symphony3 and AWS has allowed us to develop a tool that's really unlocked working efficiency, and also allowed us to improve the quality and consistency of our decision-making. We don't have any choice but to start to do more with less and embrace innovative solutions like this. So we're going to be at the forefront of that, which we're very proud to be."
James Plozza, Manager Governance, Warrnambool City Council.
The Symphony3 Difference
Symphony3 delivers a cloud based service combined with a human touch – we call it SWAS (Software with a Service). We work closely with our clients on every engagement and ensure you are supported once the solution goes live. It is an approach that is collaborative, flexible, and ensures you get technical advice tailored to your organisation.